Whilst of course I had heard of author Susan Hill I don’t think I had read any of her Simon Serrailler series so when i was invited onto the blog tour I was interested to give one a go.
In The Benefit of Hindsight Serrailler is back to work after a violent incident that led to him losing his arm. He soon has to hit the ground running though as a wealthy couple are the victims of a planned robbery after being targeted by a couple who have supposedly broken down. When there is a second robbery across town with a similar MO it puts into question if Serrailler has returned to work too early. In the meantime his sister has got a job as a doctor in the town but her skills are soon put to the test with a disturbing young mother as well as trying to help her brother recover.
This was an interesting story although it did seem a little disjointed at times with a lot of characters to get your head around and I felt it ended a bit abruptly rather than tying everything up neatly. Although of course not all stories do get a tidy ending. The crimes were all individual stories which weaved their way through the novel and at no point did I guess how things were going to go.
I liked the style of writing in this. It was short and sharp with viewpoints changing and giving us an insight into what the varying characters were thinking. I quite enjoyed this fast paced style of writing contrasting with a story that was slower in pace.
This was the first one of the series that I had read although it was actually book 10 of the series so I realise there is a lot of back story on the characters that I was missing which would have given a better understanding of their lives.
However saying that I still enjoyed it overall as a standalone and would definitely start the series at the beginning.
Find out what others on the blog tour thought.
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